Councilmember Bowie.

Councilmember Coleman?

Here.

Councilmember Kim?

Here.

Councilmember Joe's?

Here.

Councilmember Naker?

Here.

Chair Johnson?

Here.

Five present to absent being Councilmember Wuy and Vice Chair Yang, who's expected shortly.

Wonderful.

I feel like today's just going to be an incredible day for the budget conversation.

So I'm looking forward to this presentation.

So I'll be welcoming up Director Rodriguez to talk about the parks and recreations presentation of the 2027 budget for us all today.

Welcome, Director Rodriguez.

Thank you.

Good to see you all, Council members.

Appreciate the time to go over the 2027 budget presentation for the parks and recreation department.

Kicking things off, just noting that this is the cover photo, this cover photo features the North End Community Center, which we opened last spring.

Incredible addition to the North End and Ward 5 and a staple in providing program for our youth and young people.

So largely based on the feedback that we received, but this slide provides a high-level summary of our proposed general fund changes for 2027.

So while this proposal includes reductions, it also includes important investments and funding shifts that put us on more solid footing for the future for mission critical work that has either been carrying significant budget deficits or relying on one time funding that is expiring.

There are issues we've been discussing for some time and consistently and have consistently said 2027 budget is when we need to act, and this proposal addresses many of them.

So getting into the specifics, obviously it's difficult any time we're talking about reducing uh service hours or closing recreation facilities.

These aren't changes that I want to make, but in this budget climate, with nearly 90% of our general fund tied to staffing and required building costs like utilities.

Uh we have to find creative ways to reduce costs if we want to avoid layoffs or wholesale closure of additional facilities beyond Duluth and Case, which we'll talk about later.

Um simplifying this a little bit, but just noting um I've put my staff through a lot of different exercises uh over the last several months to conduct a comprehensive review of our budgeted activities, and because staffing and building operate operations drive so much of our budget, we took a close look at utilization across all 26 rec centers, including visits by location, day and time, to understand where our peak and off-peak usage occurs.

So we've shared some of that information with you with council members who have asked, including additional data in the appendix, which we'll share later, uh, but are happy to provide anything further after this presentation.

Um from that data, we've worked to identify where we could reduce service hours while creating the least disruption possible uh for the residents who rely on these facilities.

These proposed reductions are largely concentrated during lower attendance periods and primarily affect what we call drop-in use, which we'll get into.

I'll walk through each of these changes in more detail in the next few slides, but there's one important point about the savings showing here.

The budgeted amounts don't necessarily capture the full financial impact.

These reductions will also help address variable and currently unbudgeted staffing costs associated with that, with what has increasingly become the new normal for safely operating our facilities.

I have a slide later that specifically shows just how much we have unbudgeted for our work.

And many of our recreation center staffing models were established decades ago, literally when I worked at Grovelin Rec Center.

Um, when it wasn't uncommon for a 16 or 17-year-old employee to work alone or even be responsible for closing a recreation center after dark.

That's no longer realistic uh in this current climate or responsible staffing model.

Public aid public safety incidents at our facilities have increased significantly over the past three to five years, requiring us to change how we staff and operate our buildings.

Safe operations today increasingly require additional staff coverage, costs that were never contemplated when many of these facility budgets were established decades ago.

So these changes provide savings and cost avoidance beyond what is explicitly reflected on this slide.

And I'll dig further into that uh as we get into the presentation here, but um specifically including how the Duluth and case operating budget is reflected or not reflected on this slide.

Any questions before I dive into the individual line items proposed for reduction?

Council President Aker.

Thanks, Madam Chair.

I I don't know if this is reflected later, but just to summarize, are all of the planned returns or restorations to general fund because these items were previously funded with one-time funding like ARPA dollars?

Yes, the majority.

Um there's some nuance there, but we will address that in future.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So jumping into the first service reduction um headline closing non-hub recreation centers on holidays.

Um just for the purpose of how we define centers on these next few slides.

Non-hub typically are sites that operate after school, two to nine p.m.

Uh hub sites mean larger community centers, 9 a.m.

to 9 p.m.

hours of operation and along with some weekends.

Uh currently all recreation center sites are closed on major city holidays, uh, including Memorial Day, Labor Day, Fourth of July, Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Uh with this proposed change, sites currently operating two to nine would be closed on additional city holidays, including MLK Junior Day, President's Day, Juneteenth, and Christmas Eve, while our larger hub sites, community centers would stay open.

Um we've actually been contemplating this change for a while, even outside of the established budget process.